The Black Widow of Konoha
by doobit91
Summary: Kumo Hyuga has gone missingnin for a horrible crime she has committed. How will she survive with assassins, enemies, friends and family all after her? Well, she isn't called the Black Widow of Konoha for nothing...
1. Chapter 1

Kumo Hyuga bounded through the forest, jumping from branch to branch frantically all while trying to sense any possible pursuers, leave as little tracks as possible, and shove the knowledge of what she had just done as far as she could out of her mind.

She was a little stressed.

Kumo took some joy from her good fortune: it was a new moon and her trail would be hard to follow. The cloudy sky blocked almost all starlight, further impeding any tracking efforts.

_But who needs tracking_, she thought, _when you have the Byakugan? My best hope is to get out of their range, and my father's Byakugan range is nearly 900 meters._

She shuddered at the thought of running to escape her father, but regained composure and forced more chakra into her feet, boosting off a branch.

_If I learned one thing from ANBU, it's how to move fast._

She glanced over her shoulder to check for any approaching ninja, and automatically reached into her pack for an explosive tag before realizing what she was doing and shuddering again at the thought of leaving traps for her friends and family. She decided to keep running until morning, when she would disguise herself and try to rest for a while.

Pushing past the exhaustion, she swallowed a soldier pill and continued onward, not allowing herself to slow at all.

Five hours later, the sun had come up, the forest had waned away, and Kumo came upon the first clearing of any substantial size that she had encountered since leaving Konoha. Now that her adrenaline had died down, she became aware of the aftereffects of her previous battle. Outwardly, she showed no injuries besides the normal scrapes one receives from dashing through a forest for nine hours, but inside she felt a great roiling nausea and her eyes felt so swollen that she did not have to look at her reflection to know they were bright red from broken capillaries. She could still taste blood in her mouth.

_And he did all of that with one hit. I don't think he was even trying to kill me._

The clearing was brightly lit and vegetation-less. A bit too brightly lit, so she made her way into the shadows on the edge and leaned against collapsed against a tree, covering herself with a camouflage cloak from her pack.

Kumo fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost instantly.

As any good ninja would, she awoke as soon as she sensed a disturbance, but when she opened her eyes, there was no disturbance to be seen, just the peaceful clearing with damselflies flitting around and the tall grass blowing serenely in the wind.

_Oh, _she thought, _Grass. There wasn't any before._

Her still sleepy mind scrolled through any number of reasons for the setting change, including the possibility that she had been moved and the possibility of genjutsu. After trying to dispel the theoretical genjutsu several times, she concluded that the grass was real, and that it had grown there while she was sleeping.

The grass itself was vibrant green, practically glowing, as if it had an internal light source as well as the powerful rays of the sun to light it.

She blinked once.

Then there was a man there who wasn't before. He wore a conical woven hat made of dried grass, and light green robes exactly the same color as the grass he was standing in. A katana was sheathed on a sash tied around his waist. A forehead protector above shining yellow eyes informed Kumo that the mysterious ninja hailed from the village hidden in the grass.

"Good afternoon!" he called cheerily, "I am sorry that my grass woke you up. I tried to grow it as slowly as I could, so I wouldn't disturb you."

He smiled pleasantly.

"I understand that you ar being followed as I too have been following you since you left Konoha, however I led your pursuers off course with a clone. I don't imagine they will notice for at least another hour."

"They have the byakugan," Kumo replied instantly, wondering why a total stranger from a rival ninja village would do such a thing, "they'll be able to see through the clone."

"I know," he replied calmly, "But it should lead them off course for an hour at least."

"Well... thank you," Kumo said hesitantly, standing up and readying herself for any kind of attack.

_I know this type,_ she thought.

"No problem! I just wanted you to be rested up..."

_Here it comes..._

"...for when _we_ fight."

"Thank you!" she said more assuredly, adopting the mocking tone that she used to sound confident even when she was exhausted, nauseas, and low on chakra, "And what may I call you, good sir?"

"I am Kusamaru from the grass village, and my mission is to assassinate you, the Black Widow of Konoha."

"Of course it is!" Kumo replied sardonically, subconsciously drawing upon her chakra, "And you may call me Kumo."

The grass nin seemed somewhat put off.

"Are you by any chance used to your opponents helping you before they attack?"

"Not really, you just remind me of my sensei."

_He does seem like Lee-san._

"Oh," Kusamaru said, recovering, "Shall we begin?" 

And without waiting for a response, he drew his sword and dashed forward.


	2. Chapter 2

As Kusamaru ran, he rose into the air, stepping off the tall blades of grass instead of the ground. When he neared Kumo, he burst forward with his sword in a strike position.

_Poor guy doesn't know who he's up against_, she thought.

She sped to her left and landed sideways on the trunk of a tree, then jumped towards her attacker, drawing a strand of spider web from her sleeve and attached it to a shuriken which she threw past Kusamaru as she flew by.

Kusamaru had stopped in his tracks and was quickly changing directions when the shuriken circled him once. The single gossamer thread that Kumo had attached formed a loop around him, floating lightly in the air. As soon as Kusamaru touched it, it exploded.

_Perfect form, Kumo,_ she thought to herself as she landed, _there goes assassin number one of the week._

Kusamaru disappeared in a cloud of smoke and blades of grass, but as the smoke cleared, only blades of grass were left. Lots of them. And no Kusamaru.

_A... grass clone? How did he..._

Kusamaru was directly behind her. She leapt several meters away and landed facing him.

"I know all about your so called spider webs," he said calmly, "I have studied what little is known about you quite thoroughly. Survivor accounts were somewhat hard to locate."

"Then you should no that your lame clones won't work on me," she replied, pointing at her grey eyes, "I just destroyed that last one to show you just how easy it is."

"I also know that your Byakugan is not functional."

_Damn!_

"Then you're one of the few people outside of my village who does," she said, exuding nonchalance, "and that can be easily remedied."

"We'll see..." Kusamaru chuckled, "Grass Clone jutsu!"

The grass on either side and in front of him stretched up and formed three identical copies of Kusamaru. Each drew his sword and dashed forward on top of the grass, much faster than before. The real Kusamaru stood in the background, smiling smugly.

"Don't waste your chakra!" Kumo screamed as she launched a kunai at each of the replications.

The grass clones easily knocked away the kunai with their swords, but by the time they did, Kumo had already rolled into the grass in front of them and shot up with flying kicks.

"Leaf Whirlwind!" she shouted as each of the grass clones were reduced to the grass of which they were composed.

Kumo spun to face the real Kusamaru, blades of grass in the air all around her, just in time to see him complete a hand sign.

"Grass needle jutsu!"

The blades of grass in the air around her immediately straightened out and appeared to be quite a bit sharper.

_I better move._

She jumped straight up as the grass needles shot at her from all sides. Several stuck into her arms and one into her back.

"Impressive!" Kusamaru called pleasantly as she landed, "You are much better with taijutsu than when we last fought."

"I thought I recognized you!" Kumo called back cheerily, "I fought you in my first Chunin exam."

_And I lost,_ she thought grimly.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well…" Kumo said slyly while painfully removing blades of grass from her arm and back, "this will make for one interesting fight. I am willing to guess that my fighting style has changed enough between now and when we last fought that you won't have much of an advantage."

"And the same can be said for me," Kusamaru replied. He adjusted his forehead protector, causing the sun to shine into her eyes. Whether the action was intentional or not, Kumo was annoyed.

"I know people like you," Kumo spat, "and I can see right through you. You act like you're all noble just so you can get the respect you think you deserve! But I've only met two ninjas in my life who actually deserve that kind of respect and they never asked for it in the first place."

Kusamaru smiled serenely, but the grass at his feet coiled and stretched out spasmodically.

"I don't act like this for respect," he almost whispered with the slightest shadow of contempt on his face, "I have never met a ninja who deserves respect for acting this way. I act how I do because my father beat it in to me. And…" he brightened, laughing softly, "it's just the right thing to do!"

Kumo groaned in frustration.

"Well, whatever! I'm not just going to stand around in your little field and wait for you to attack. This isn't an enclosed space! I know what your grass does. I'm leaving."

"And I'll follow."

She jumped backwards onto a tree branch behind her and bounded three trees further into the forest. Kusamaru ran after her on the forest floor.

"Oh…" she breathed.

The large patch of grass moved just as fast as Kusamaru did. Blades of grass shot out of any surface, including the bases of trees and even rocks, not moving individually, but growing anew in front of the grass nin. The terrain behind the grass was looked torn up and generally disturbed.

_Okay then… I'll blow it all up!_

Almost instinctually, Kumo drew two strands of webbing from each sleeve, cutting them short with small chakra blades on her thumbs. She released the strings in the air before her in a criss-cross pattern. She summoned chakra from all points of her body and built it up in her hand. The pressure of chakra grew, and grew until she finally released it, forming an air blast that shot from her palm and propelled the grid of explosive wire directly at Kusamaru. Eight Trigrams Empty Palm, a traditional Hyuga technique; with an explosive addition Kumo liked to call the spider bomb.

Kusamaru was knocked from his feet and smashed onto the grass, which immediately began to wrap him in a protective layer. As soon as the spider bomb hit, the covering was blown off and Kusamaru rolled several meters, bouncing painfully. After coming to a stop, he pushed the remaining grass ashes off his robe and stood up slowly.

"That's new," he commented as if Kumo had shown him a nail polish color instead of an attack that tossed him meters away, leaving him bloodied and burnt.

"Not really," she called back, "you just missed it by a month or two… But I know what _you_ do next."

Already, the grass around Kusamaru had started to lean towards him and glow faintly. If Kumo's Byakugan had worked, she would have seen chakra flow directly from the vegetation into his wounds. The wounds on his hands began to heal.

"If I remember correctly," remarked, emulating his casualty, "the grass seeds you carry around with you have been previously soaked in your chakra, so they grow anywhere, even on stone. Because they're filled with your chakra, they automatically regenerate you as you battle… right?"

Without waiting for an answer she continued, "It also seems that because of this kinship you share with your grass, you have the developed the ability to control it to some extent without the use of handsigns. It seems you are so used to controlling it that it has become subconscious, a reflex even, like when the grass cushioned your fall and wrapped you up."

"Perceptive!" Kusamaru agreed, "But perception won't be able to help you if I outclass you in speed and power."

"Please! I haven't seen anything that impresses me yet."

"Not yet…" he replied softly.

And then he was gone. Kumo felt his presence directly behind her, so she launched herself off the branch frantically and spun, releasing web from her sleeve as she did. But he wasn't there.

_Shit…_

She twisted her head around and saw him standing directly where she would land… sword drawn. She had no leverage in the air to turn her body around and defend herself.

Kumo closed her eyes.


End file.
